


Love is a Polaroid

by Rikkapikasnikka



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Surprise Pairing, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5095004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rikkapikasnikka/pseuds/Rikkapikasnikka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He really fucked up this time.</p>
<p>Nearly half a kilometer of debris, destruction, and devastation stretched out behind him, mostly in the form of torn up guardrails, signposts, vending machines, and concrete rubble. Several trees were splintered, some cars were overturned, people were huddled under overhangs and inside doorways with their phones out, and somewhere towards the start of the militarized zone, his manager was waiting impatiently for him to come back, as if he were a dog who'd run away from home in a fit.</p>
<p>All the while pretending that he hadn't noticed him and his friends watching Shizuo wreck havoc on their city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is a Polaroid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts), [TiramisuSumi (KadotaKyohei)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KadotaKyohei/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Sumi~! Please enjoy this one-shot I wrote for you that's taken me over a year to finish~! /o/
> 
> The title and theme for this one-shot is based off of Imagine Dragon's Polaroid, from the Smoke+Mirrors album.

He really fucked up this time.

Nearly half a kilometer of debris, destruction, and devastation stretched out behind him, mostly in the form of torn up guardrails, signposts, vending machines, and concrete rubble. Several trees were splintered, some cars were overturned, people were huddled under overhangs and inside doorways with their phones out, and somewhere towards the start of the militarized zone, his manager was waiting impatiently for him to come back, as if he were a dog who'd run away from home in a fit.

And in a sense, he had. He had caught one, solitary whiff of that awful stench and he had chased after it like a dog chases a cat, barking out insults and snarling his teeth as he dodged claws and reached to grab tufts of fur. All of it evaded his grasp as elusively as any feline.

Heiwajima Shizuo was the strongest man in Ikebukuro, and he had really fucked up this time.

For now, Orihara Izaya, a pest on the city, had escaped. All this destruction, all this ruin, and nothing to show for it but a few bruises and scrapes. He stood at the corner of a sidewalk, staring across the street at a retreating back, while a street sign next to him proudly announced, "Welcome to Shinjuku!"

He knew better than to chase a cat into its own front yard.

Reluctantly, Shizuo turned around and started walking back through the city carnage. When and if he could, he put signs back where they belonged, picked up vending machines from the ground and placed them right-side up, and even turned cars back over onto their wheels. He apologized to storefront owners, who would glare and not say much back, and then pulled out a cigarette to smoke as he headed back to Tom, his manager.

All the while pretending that he hadn't noticed _him_ and his friends watching Shizuo wreck havoc on their city.

\-----

"Shizu-Shizu and Iza-Iza are at it again!!"

The one female in their group became overly excited as two tall men half-danced, half-ran across the street, one wielding a sign post like it was a baseball bat, and the other holding a knife no longer than a pen, but twelve times sharper. All four members of the group watched them, but only she seemed excited by the destruction going on. One of them sighed deeply and shook his head, but she paid him no attention as she leaned over the railing and started waving her hand in the air.

“Shizu-chan, Iza-chan!! Which one of you does th--”

“That’s enough, Erika.”

The man in the beanie hat reached out and pulled her away from the railing, with the help of her best friend. The woman, Erika, pouted as she was hauled away and set down somewhere where she couldn’t watch the fight. A loud crashing sound reverberated through the floor, but all four of them paid it little mind.

“Not fair, Dotachin! I _need_ to find out who tops!”

“I don’t think either of them do,” the man in the beanie tried to explain to her, squatting down beside her as she crossed her arms and looked away.

“I refuse to believe they switch! Once one of them gets the upper hand, they wouldn’t ever let that control go! Either Shizu-chan does the pen--”

“That really is enough now, Erika-chan, I think we’ve tormented these kids enough for today. Let’s just go get lunch, yeah?”

The man who had sighed earlier had leaned down and clamped his hand over Erika’s mouth, reducing her next few words to nothing but mumbling while she glared at him. Togusa watched the man in the beanie with a careful expression, as if concerned about him but unwilling to voice such concern aloud.

Kyohei, “Dotachin,” refused to acknowledge that he was worried. Instead, he helped Erika to her feet and dusted her off as Walker brought over her hat, which she jammed back on top of her braided hair. She walked calmly back to the railing, stared longingly after the retreating backs of Heiwajima Shizuo and Orihara Izaya, and gave a wistful sigh.

“Alright. Let’s go get lunch!”

And Togusa was more than happy to hand the keys over to Walker so the two young adults could make their way back to the van, but only so he could stay where he was, watching Kyohei glance back over the railing himself, eyes focused on the two figures in the distance playing out their usual, almost-daily fight.

“Everything...okay?”

“...Yeah. Let’s go to lunch.”

“You sure?”

“‘Course. He can take care of himself."

\-----

Sometime later that night, Shizuo was walking back home from work, trying hard to ignore the ache in his muscles and the sluggishness in his feet. As much as he hated to admit it, chasing the flea wasn’t as easy as he made it look, and at the end of the day, he’d be dog-tired and longing for his bed. Tom had let him go home after their last client, but Shizuo had insisted on walking him home just in case - their clients were starting to seek revenge more and more often now, and the office had received a hate message earlier this week. Shizuo wasn’t taking any chances when he could’ve easily prevented an outcome. He could defend himself, but with no offense to his manager, Tom was a shitty fighter.

He was rounding the last corner before his apartment, when a very familiar voice said a very casual, “Hey!”

Frozen in his tracks, Shizuo could feel his heart jump in his chest, the air catch in his throat, and his head go light all at once. He took a brief moment to try and take a deep breath, failed, pushed his sunglasses higher up his nose, and finally turned around to face…

...to face him, and Shizuo could barely get out a shaky, “H-Hey.”

Kadota Kyohei approached him with his tools slung over one shoulder, his jacket tied around his waist, and a calculating look stretched over his features; yet the frown was a clear sign of some sort of concern.

_Don’t look like that, I don’t deserve your pity._

“You doing alright lately, Shizuo?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, ‘course. You?”

“...Yeah.”

And Shizuo’s tired brain couldn’t come up with anything else to say after that.

“I just… I saw you and Izaya-kun earlier today and--”

_Yeah, I know._

“I noticed you haven’t squashed him yet.”

“Damn flea deserves it.”

Shizuo felt his heart jump as Kyohei smiled and chuckled.

“Yeah, probably.”

They toed at the ground for a while, their conversation dying faster than fire burning on wet wood.

“Look, do you wanna--”  
“Well, I best be go--”

They both stopped, realizing they were talking over each other, and tried to get the other to finish first with various sayings of, “Go on,” “That’s okay, you go first,” and “No, it’s my fault--”

Kyohei eventually finished his sentence first, knowing that Shizuo was probably too reserved to try his invitation again. “I best be going home. Got the fish to feed and all.”

Shizuo nodded. “See you around then.”

“Yeah… See you."

“ _Jya_.”  
  
“ _Jya mata_. ”  
  
_Idiot. He has more important things to do than hang out with you._

\-----

For the next couple of days, Shizuo confined himself to his apartment. He moped, he slept, he ate, and he moped some more, but he never left. He laid on the couch and stared, absentmindedly, at the television, replaying scene after scene inside his head. When Kasuka suddenly appeared on the tiny screen, Shizuo turned it off and went to bed.

When Tom finally came on the third day to bring him to work, Shizuo found that he wasn't ready. Yes, he had showered and shaved and put on clean clothes, but he didn't feel prepared to face the outside world again. His hands shook even as he stepped over the threshold and locked the door behind him.

He was a monster, and all he did was destroy. Why would Ikebukuro ever welcome him? Why would anyone feel better about seeing him back on the streets? When would the city vote to throw him out, the menace of Ikebukuro?

He gently placed his sunglasses over his eyes, hoping they would hide how he nervously glanced down every alleyway. Yet halfway through the day, before they even got lunch, Shizuo's nose caught a whiff of that horrible stench.

He paused in the street and looked over his shoulder, causing Tom to hesitate too.

"Shizuo?"

Instinct told him to chase after that smell, chase it down and destroy it before it reached him, before it found him. Surprise it, before it surprised him.

Shizuo beat back his instincts. The flea wouldn't come looking for trouble, not this soon. Right?

"It's nothing."

"If you say so..."

For the rest of the afternoon, as they went about their work and collected some debts and lost others, that horrible stench permeated the air. It was like Shizuo couldn't disconnect himself from the smell that screamed, "Izaya! Izaya! Bastard flea on the loose!!"

But he wanted to. He wanted to so badly.

They had lunch, a quick cigarette break, and they continued with their day. Tom, thank goodness for Tom, tried to act normal and engaged Shizuo in all the usual conversations, even though he was barely joining them. He seemed to notice that Shizuo's attention was everywhere but here, yet he kept talking like usual.

Around mid-afternoon, they passed Kadota and his small gang. They made brief eye contact from across the street, and Tom asked if Shizuo wanted to say hello, but Shizuo looked away and shook his head. They would've continued onward to their next client, as they always did, if a certain someone hadn't made themselves known at that exact second.

He was just as smarmy and slimy as he had been three days ago, and Shizuo decided that smug smirk needed to be smeared across the concrete. He felt his hands push up his sleeves and then ball into fists, saw his sunglasses slide down his nose from the sweat of his body, witnessed Tom backing away several paces to stand clear of the unending ruin Shizuo was about to cause...

But _he_ was watching.

It took nearly all he had, but Shizuo found himself slipping his hands back into his pockets, grinding his teeth together, and indicating to his manager that he wanted to leave. Tom seemed to understand, but Orihara Izaya was still standing in the center of the sidewalk, watching them with that damn infuriating expression. It meant he was thinking.

"Shizu-chan doesn't want to play today?"

The sing-song tone of his voice grated across Shizuo's ears.

"Don't frickin' call me that."

"I'm here in Ikebukuro doing all sorts of horrible, nasty things, and you don't feel the need to squash me?"

Shizuo paused in his step, but he made himself keep walking. Izaya, as observant as he was, noticed.

"It's your lucky day, flea. Just go away."

"Now, why would I do that when I've discovered something most interesting?"

He was now walking behind Shizuo, who was walking behind Tom, who seemed tense and nervous. He had the strongest people in Ikebukuro tailing behind him, threatening to start a fight, and he had no way of ending it once it began.

"I just wanna be left alone, louse. Go bother someone else."

Izaya huffed. "Dotachin won't play with me like Shizu-chan will, and my carrier is out for the day. It's _boring_."

Shizuo hesitated at Kyohei's awful nickname, then turned around and tried to punch the insect into next week.

He failed to both land a hit on him and send him out of this time period.

Izaya laughed as he danced out of the way. Frustration took over Shizuo in the form of red, blinding rage, and he saw himself rip a street sign from its concrete base before chucking it at Izaya-kun. Like all the others before it, it missed and landed on the sidewalk, screeching as it skidded along.

But it hadn't even stopped before Shizuo was picking up another sign, before Izaya was taking out his knife, before several people in the immediate vicinity were stopping and staring and whispering. Shizuo was barely aware of the fact that his manager was gone, or the man horribly crossing the street, as all of his attention was on the louse in front of him.

They exchanged blows, dodged swings and thrusts and throws, parried occasionally, and danced along the sidewalk, leaving newly-made potholes and fresh scars on its grey surface. When an alleyway opened to Shizuo's left, Izaya was quick to duck down it and scamper half-way up the fire escape before Shizuo had realized where he went. Growling, ready to try and rip the fire escape from the wall, he was stopped when a hand landed firmly on his shoulder.

Surprised, Shizuo turned towards the intruder with his sign, ready to smack some sense into the idiot that had approached the beast at its full wrath, but instead, all of the hot air went out of him like a popped balloon.

"Kyohei...?"

The metal pole went slack in his grip as Kadota's smile lit up the dank and dirty alley.

"Yeah bud. Hey, I need your help with something. That okay?"

"Suh...Sure..."

It was like walking in a dream, Shizuo decided as he followed after Kyohei. Izaya was upset, he had paused in tearing up half of Tokyo, and someone had stopped his rampage with just a hand on his shoulder. Shizuo heard, but barely felt, the sign post fall out of his hand and hit the ground, clanging as it bounced and settled. He didn't notice Izaya making his way back down the fire escape, an intense frown on his face and forehead, and he paid little attention to passersby as they scurried out of his way.

Kadota walked Shizuo all the way over to the van he shared with his friends, where all three men only nodded in greeting and the one woman watched, sparkle-eyed and almost giggling. They went to the back, where Kyohei lifted the trunk and gestured at a long, collapsed ladder.

"Saburo's gotta head out soon, but I got a job on the sixth floor and there's no elevator. Normally he'd help me out, but..."

"Kadota, it's _Hijiribe Ruri_. I can't miss a thing, I'm already late as it is!"

Shizuo didn't bother asking about why anyone else couldn't help; he just pulled the ladder safely free from the interior of the van. Erika and Walker put the seats back up, Togusa started up the engine. and they were gone: navigating the streets of Ikebukuro until the van was nothing but a speck in the distance.

"C'mon Shizuo, it's a long climb."

With a small frown, Shizuo holstered the ladder up and onto his shoulder, for better support, and followed Kadota to the building. Several times, Kyohei tried to pause and help Shizuo with the load as they traversed both the street and the interior of the complex, but Shizuo insisted that he was fine, that he had it, and no, it wasn't that heavy.

After all, the weight of the ladder was nothing in comparison to the weight in his chest.

So instead, Kyohei helped him make sure the ladder made all of the turns safely, that it didn't knock anything over, and that it reached the sixth floor with no damage done to a single wall or floor. Shizuo placed it down as Kadota knocked on a door and pleasantly talked with someone behind it, and then he picked it up again when they were let inside.

"Thanks man, you were a big help."

"Don't mention it."

All of the rest of his tools were laid around the room, and Kyohei was already getting to back work.

"D'you need me to bring it down later?"

"Nah, Saburo will be back by the time I'm done, so don't worry about it."

"Oh... Okay."

Shizuo was reminded of his own job. Ashamed, he looked down and mumbled, "I should get going back to Tom-san..."

"Mmm. Be safe."

He turned and walked away, but he hesitated at the doorway. He looked over his shoulder, opened his mouth to say something else...

...Yet no sound came out. And so he left, feeling strangely empty.

Shizuo returned to Tom peacefully, and they finished the rest of their day uninterrupted by fleas or men in beanies. The next day moved along in much the same fashion, except their 'customers' were a little more unruly and Shizuo was a little more on edge. The day after that was considerably normal, if one didn't count that they ate lunch somewhere new. And the following day was bland...

It was a week before Shizuo saw the flea again, but the louse was lounging on the opposite side of the street as Tom haggled with a shopkeeper over his debt. They watched each other, eyes narrowed and foreheads furrowed, fingers twitching for their respective weapons.

But this side of the street was Ikebukuro, and that side was Shinjuku, and so, they were at a stand still.

"Shizuo, c'mon, this guy refuses to give, think you can-- oh."

Tom seemed to notice Orihara-kun, but he only frowned and said nothing. Shizuo snapped his gaze away; he had a job to perform.

And even as Tom counted the bills and they walked towards their next client, Shizuo could feel the flea watching him. Following him. Stalking him. They prowled their respective borders like wolves, baring their fangs and ruffling their fur, but eventually, Tom turned to head deeper into Ikebukuro and Shizuo and Izaya broke contact.

Yet Shizuo could sense that something was off, and Tom was nervous, if his constant side-glances were anything to go by. They visited three more clients, the louse didn't show up, and Tom sent him home once they reached the office.

"You sure? I can bring you home."

Tom shook his head.

"I got some paperwork to do. I'll be careful, don't worry," He smiled and landed a hand on Shizuo's shoulder, his expression a sharp contrast to Shizuo's worried frown, "I'll even email you when I get home."

That did make Shizuo feel a little better, so he clocked out and started the trip back to his apartment. He walked slowly, watching the crowds and the people and wondering where they might be going, but he couldn't come up with many stories.

As he turned onto his home street, his nose started to wrinkle. He caught sight of a man leaning up against the wall beside the entrance to his apartment building, and a growl rumbled low in his throat. Izaya had the hood of that ridiculous parka pulled over his head, but it hadn't prevented Shizuo from sniffing him out. The informant's face broke into a smirk as Shizuo stopped right across from him, his shoulders tense and face angry.

"The fuck you want, louse?"

"Actually, I'd like for you to invite me inside. I need to have a... _talk_ with Shizu-chan."

The way each word slipped out of his mouth like they were oozing slime made Shizuo want to say no. The strain on the word after the pause made him rethink that. Talk? About what? And was the flea implying Shizuo couldn't talk at all?

Perhaps not, Shizuo considered, but whatever.

"Why? What's in it for ya?" Shizuo grumbled.

"Oh, I dunno, but we'll get to that later." Izaya shrugged his shoulders, and the hood threatened to slip off his head. "Can I come in, or no?"

Shizuo glared at the smarmy flea, considered squashing it between his fingers, but eventually sighed and relented. He was tired, in no mood to fight, and he wanted whatever this was over and done with. It was too strange unlocking the front door and having the flea follow him inside, it was too weird to watch it sit down on his couch, and it was definitely too abnormal for Shizuo to sit next to him - so he stayed standing.

"So, what the fuck do you want?"

The expression of Izaya's face suggested that whatever he wanted, he was going to get. It was the face of a predator that had cornered its prey, and it made Shizuo anxious. He wasn't caught, not yet, and he was still in control...for now.

"I know, Shizu-chan. I know _everything_."

And Shizuo's brow furrowed in confusion because that made as much sense as wearing snow boots in July, and it could've referred to anything from "sorry mom it was me that broke the vase" to how much his paycheck was yesterday. Unless...

No, it definitely wasn't that.

"Flea, you brag about knowing everything all the time. You're gunna have to be more specific." Shizuo was tempted to open a pack of cigarettes and smoke, but he tried hard not to smoke in his apartment. Yet his fingers were still twitching.

"Am I? Fine. I know about your little...crush."

He took too long to answer. "Crush? Like, your head against the ground crush? Or your face against a pole crush? Either would work right now, really."

And he talked a little too much when he got nervous. Once the pest left, he was going to go through at least half the pack before he felt calm again.

"Shizu-chan's playing dumb."

Shizuo's eyes narrowed against Izaya's smirk. He didn't say anything, since his clenched jaw and unhappy expression should've been answer enough. But whatever reply it gave caused Izaya's smirk to widen.

"That's fine. I'll just...leave these with you." And from the inside of his jacket, Izaya pulled out a rectangular, clasp envelope and placed it on the worn coffee table. After that, he stood from the couch and walked toward Shizuo, who held his ground despite the urge to take a step back.

"If Shizu-chan needs help, well... He knows where to find me."

The smirk that had followed those words was still ingrained in Shizuo's head some hours later. He hadn't opened Izaya's parting gift yet - Shizuo was afraid of whatever was inside. It obviously had something to do with Kyohei; Izaya had said he knew, and Shizuo wasn't so dumb that he couldn't figure it out. He knew about his crush on...on...

Shizuo shook his head desperately, ignoring his jumbled train of thought, and he took another drag from his cigarette. Another exhale pushed clouds of smoke into the night air, and he watched them swirl and fade as he pushed the filter to his mouth again.

What was in the envelope?

He didn't want to know. It was on top of his nightstand as Shizuo leaned out of the window by his bed, smoking what he promised himself would be the last cigarette for the night. When at last it had smoldered away and all of the ash had been carried away by the wind, Shizuo snuffed the remainder in his ash tray, closed the window, and sat on top of his bed. Now with the background city noise of ikebukuro muffled, his mind was left to wander again. He glanced at the envelope, resisted the urge to open it, and pulled back the one blanket on his bed.

He curled up underneath it, stared at the envelope some more, before growling and rolling over.

An hour and a half later, he'd be sitting up and tearing the damn thing open with a vengeance. Grumbling to himself, Shizuo reached inside and started to pull out whatever was inside - it felt glossy, like photographs from an old polaroid camera - but he stopped himself. What the fuck was he doing?

Was he falling for Izaya's trap? Playing into his hands, like everyone else? Or was this for his own benefit, a selfless act by his arch enemy?

Shizuo nearly laughed. As if. This stunk of manipulation and tricks, but Shizuo's curiosity couldn't be contained and he pulled out the photographs without another thought for the consequences. The whole stack was as thick as his thumb and then some, but the first one on top made him drop the rest.

They scattered all over his floor, telling a story that was incredibly out of order. His eyes, wide and scared, tore themselves away from the picture in his hands to look quickly through the rest. His breathing grew erratic, his chest felt tight, and everything else was numb. A million questions ran across his mind, but the most prominent--

_Why? Why?! WHY?!?_

The sole picture in his hands ripped, straight in half, dividing the couple.

For the next several hours, Shizuo laid in bed in distress. He would refuse to admit he had cried, but he had; he yelled into his pillow, punched his mattress in frustration, and cursed the flea to hell and back and back again. He looked at the rest of the pictures, searching for evidence of photoshop or doctoring - but he had no idea what that evidence would look like, so he only upset himself further. He put them in chronological order according to their timestamps, but the story flowed effortlessly and made sense and never double backed on itself. He laid them out in a line at one point, only to smear it and crawl back into bed.

\---

The sun was rising, the sky was turning gray and blue, and sleep had still evaded the blond. When he glanced at his cellphone, he groaned at the low battery percentage and the two missed text messages from Tom-san.

After the emotional roller coaster of last night, all he felt was numb.

The pictures showcased a date between a man with slicked back, brown hair and a blonde woman in a bright red dress. She didn't look much unlike Vorona, but her features were more Japanese and less foreign, her eyes brown instead of violet. They walked together, chatting in the first couple of pictures, before sitting at a restaurant and ordering food. They talked more, had wine, had bread and dessert...

And Shizuo would've been fine with that if that's all it was. A date was nothing, Kadota was allowed to go on dates, and the pictures were marked as Friday of last week. Shizuo shouldn't have minded just this, not really anyway...

But the next half of the pictures were sickening. They were outside a building with pink lights and decorations, laughing. They were at a glowing kiosk, picking out a room. They were smiling at each other with knowing looks in their eyes as they went up the stairs. They were in a room, and all it had was a bed and some other, small furniture pieces. They were on the bed. They were half-naked...

The pictures didn't go any further, except for what looked like an after shot with their clothes ruffled and hair all messed up. Shizuo wanted to puke whenever he looked at it, so he didn't.

He wanted to gather them up, throw them away, but picking them up required examining them all over again and throwing them away meant someone might find them in the trash. Shizuo didn't want this to be used as blackmail against his friend, even if it was already apparently be used as blackmail against him.

The sun slowly rouse and Shizuo numbly thought about getting ready for work, but it was difficult to formulate the thought or gather his will. By the time he was able to sit up and contemplate brushing his teeth, someone was knocking at the door.

It was Tom-san, but his boss took only one look at Shizuo's appearance before shooing him back to bed.

"Why didn't you call or email me? If you’re sick, we don’t mind you taking the day off."

"Sorry..." Shizuo mumbled. They had curled him up on the couch with the warmest blanket they could find, and while Tom was lecturing him, Vorona was in the kitchen, either making tea or making a mess. Shizuo didn't care which.

"It's alright. We'll be fine without you, so stay here and rest up. I'll check on you tonight, yeah?"

Shizuo nodded blankly as he stared at his empty television screen. Vorona brought him tea and what looked like ramen broth in a bowl, excluding the noodles. By the time Shizuo could bring himself to drink either, his coworkers were probably having lunch and the food was stone cold.

It didn't matter. He couldn't taste them anyway.

He spent a good portion of his day moping, in shock, and in deep thought. He went and got the mail, cleaned up the mess Vorona had created in the kitchen, made his bed, and picked up the pictures (only to place them back in the envelope from whence they came). Shizuo brushed his teeth and took a shower, combed his hair and put on clean clothes, and then scrolled through his phone, barely reading the names on his short, concise contacts list. He knew he had to talk to someone; needed to talk to someone. Information like this would only eat away at him, and he cursed the flea for handing over the envelope.

It was disturbing enough to know that Izaya knew about his...feelings. When had the smarmy bastard found out? Did someone tell him? Was Shizuo that easy to read? Had he let something slip? No, he had been so careful…

Either way, the flea knew and had used the information to his advantage. He had dealt a serious blow to Shizuo’s emotional state, and Shizuo was left fumbling around with the broken pieces of his mental cognizance. Normally, he would talk to Celty - her calm acceptance and understanding was the best remedy he could ever hope for - but he had never told Celty about Kadota. It had never felt like she needed to know, like the time was right, like he was ready. And he couldn’t unload everything on her now.

No, the only people that knew about this was himself and...Izaya.

He heard himself growl aloud and the plastic of his phone creek as his hands trembled. He closed it a little too harshly, put his face in his hands, and tried to reconsider his options. Running his hands through his hair, Shizuo looked up and around his apartment, before making up his mind and putting on his shoes.

More than halfway down the stairs, he realized he had forgotten to grab money for train fare. Instantly, he made the decision to walk and think through carefully; he had a plan of motion, but it wasn’t what anyone would call a good plan.

Without his infamous bartender uniform, Shizuo found himself near invisible. Although he was tall for a Japanese adult, and his hair was a startling blond, people gave him less of a berth than usual. Or maybe it was because it was rush hour and there was just less room on the sidewalks. Shizuo remembered briefly that Tom-san said he would check up on him, but he knew his boss wouldn’t worry. Shizuo wasn’t worth worrying over.

While waiting for the light to turn from blue to red, and the pedestrian signs to flicker over to the green, walking man, Shizuo thought over a course of action. But thinking, speaking, and clever words had never been his strong points; true action, physical action, came easier to him - but when had his actions ever landed him anywhere good? Breaking bones, destroying property, hurting people...

And so when Shizuo finally stood outside the fancy apartment complex on the edge of Shinjuku, he still had no idea what he was going to say. And his mind was even blanker when the elevator soared upward several stories, and the only question he could think of as he stared down the apartment door was, “Why?”

“I simply felt as if you had a right to know, of course.”

Their banter came so easily to him. Even in his listless state, he could come up with a million and one comebacks, none of which Izaya would find particularly funny or clever.

“How’d you know in the first place?”

And the flea laughed as he walked from his spot behind the couch towards the kitchen, picking up a mug of steaming liquid from the counter as he went.

“You’re too obvious, Shizu-chan. Everything’s on your face, plain as day. You wear your heart on your sleeve, and your heart is an open book.”

Izaya’s smirk was too wide to look at, and so Shizuo watched his eyes until the flea took a drink from the cup. He knew that look, that expression, and it was one of triumph. Something was going according to Izaya’s plan, and Shizuo felt his brow furrow as he tried to figure it out.

“Oh, don’t do too much thinking, Shizu-chan. It’s just not your style,” Izaya sighed and sat on the couch, opposite Shizuo, placing the mug on his knee after lightly crossing his legs. “You’re obviously not here to destroy my office, so what do you want? More pictures? Information on the woman? How big Dotachin’s--”

“Don’t fucking call him that,” Shizuo growled low, looking away and towards the muted television. It was broadcasting the news, and the reporter was talking but no sound was leaving her lips. Shizuo felt his gaze shift to the floor before he looked back to Izaya’s smirking face.

“How...how long?”

“Shizu-chan wants to ask questions?”

The blond growled again before nodding in defeat.

“Normally, you know, I do charge my clientele.” The knowing look shared between them stated the obvious: Shizuo had no money, and even if he did, Izaya wouldn’t have wanted it. “But we can...negotiate payment later.” Shizuo had a strong feeling he wouldn’t like Izaya’s collection methods, but that was fine. He needed answers, answers to everything, and he wanted...

“So, how long what?”

“...Huh?”

The flea rolled his eyes. “You asked how long, yes? How long what?”

“...How long have you known?”

Izaya laughed and took another drink from his mug.

“Since the beginning, Shizu-chan. Perhaps before you yourself knew. You might want to ask instead how long _Dotachin_ has known.”

All of Shizuo’s world must have shattered. All of the broken fragments must have been strewn across the floor, kicked around by Izaya’s boots as he made a bigger and bigger mess. No, the informant had to be lying - that’s what he did for a living, dammit! - but remembering the pictures, their glossy texture and time stamps, Shizuo had a sinking feeling that Izaya’s words had to be true. What point was there now in lying?

“I… I don’t want to know that,” Shizuo admitted, finding his head in his hands and his fingers gripping his hair. He pulled at it, told himself not to show emotion in front of his worst enemy, and tried to continue.

“I don’t want to know who the woman is either.”

Izaya was genuinely surprised. “I would’ve thought Shizu-chan would want revenge on the girl who stole his boyfriend’s heart!” And he was laughing again, but it wasn’t as loud or as funny. “But I guess the monster is tired of violence.”

“I hate violence.”

“So you say, Shizu-chan. So you say.”

They were quiet for awhile, as Shizuo agonized over this newfound information and wrestled with his internal thoughts. Izaya, on the other hand, was quite content to watch the muted television and drink from his mug.

“Why do you have those pictures, you sick bastard?” Shizuo grumbled, looking up from his hands and sitting straighter.

“I wasn’t spying on Dotachin, if that’s what you’re asking,” Izaya replied easily. “I was asked for information on the woman. She’s married, it turns out. Their relationship is entirely born of deceit and lies.” That couldn’t be true...could it?

Yet as Shizuo asked more and more questions, and as he received more and more answers, he realized it all had to be true. It flowed too easily, fitting into his life like a missing jigsaw piece: why Kyohei usually avoided him, why after high school they had fallen out of contact, why Tom kept encouraging Shizuo to find a girlfriend, why Izaya teased him mercilessly about not being loved - apparently, more people than just Shizuo, Izaya, and Kyohei knew about his little crush, but many had been reluctant to say anything. Shizuo had wanted to ask who knew, but he feared that the list would be too long for him to handle. No, best forget about it.

“Anything else, protozoan, before we talk money?”

Shizuo frowned, opened his mouth, paused, closed it, thought some more, and then opened it again to speak.

“Why did you show me…?”

Izaya looked intrigued. He uncrossed his legs, sat up straight, placed his mug on a coaster on the table, and folded his hands before looking Shizuo in the eye.

“You really want to know that, Shizu-chan?”

A bitter taste coated the back of Shizuo’s throat. He wasn’t going to like this answer, but he was prepared for it.

“I wanted to see what would happen. Alas, it hasn’t been that interesting. I was hoping you would break, go berserk, seek revenge. Destroy half of Tokyo, perhaps, looking for the girl in the photographs. Yet instead, here you are on my couch, talking calmly to the man who you claim to hate most, who hates you in return, broken in an entirely different way. If I had known such information would’ve tamed the monster of ‘Bukuro, maybe I should’ve done this sooner.”

If it was possible, this was Izaya’s widest smirk yet, like that of a cat that stole the cream from a kitten.

“It’s only proven that I still can’t predict Shizu-chan. What does it feel like, hmm? Being in love with a human who wants nothing to do with a monster like yourself?”

Shizuo flinched and turned his head away. “You’re a sick, twisted, fucking--”

“The sick one is you, Shizu-chan, thinking it would work out.” Izaya stood up then, making Shizuo feel suddenly small on the couch. He tried to back away as Izaya approached him, but the flea loomed over him and pinned him down with only one hand, reminding Shizuo of how listless and weak he had been feeling all day.

“Love will never fill the void, protozoan. In pictures, in the movies, in stories, it looks better, but it’s best left there.”

He would tell himself later it was because he had been feeling weak all day, that maybe Izaya had poisoned the air and it had paralyzed him, or maybe Shizuo’s brain had just died temporarily, but in all honestly, it was the shock and surprise of the kiss that rooted him to the couch.

Back home, Izaya’s parting words would rotate around in his head for the rest of the night.

_“Let me make you human, Shizu-chan. Maybe then someone can love you.”_

A week later, Shizuo would knock on Izaya’s door and accept Izaya’s proposal, paying back the information broker in full.

 

 

 

 


End file.
